Important Quotations Explained

1. “That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the
past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way
out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley
for the last twenty-six years.”

At the outset of Chapter 1, just as the book begins, Amir writes these
words. With them, he hints at the central drama of the story and the reason he
is telling it. To the reader, the quotation functions as a teaser. It piques the
reader’s interest without revealing exactly what Amir is talking about, and from
the time period Amir mentions, twenty-six years, the reader gets an idea of just
how important this moment was. As the story unfolds, we realize that the
deserted alley Amir refers to is where Hassan was raped, and that this event has
largely defined the course of Amir’s life since. This is what Amir means when he
says that the past continues to claw its way out. Try as he might to bury it, he
was unable to because his feelings of guilt kept arising. As a result, he
figuratively continues peeking into the alley where Assef raped Hassan,
literally meaning that he keeps going over the event in his mind.

2. “A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up
to anything.”

Baba says these words to Rahim Khan while he is talking about Amir at the
end of Chapter 3, and the quotation reveals important traits in both Amir
and Baba. With these words, Baba sums up one of Amir’s major character flaws—his
cowardice—and Baba shows how much value he places in standing up for what is
right. Baba is reluctant to praise Amir, largely because he feels Amir lacks the
courage to even stand up for himself, leaving Amir constantly craving Baba’s
approval. Amir’s desire for this approval as well as his cowardice later cause
him to let Assef rape Hassan. The quotation also foreshadows the major test of
Amir’s character that occurs when he must decide whether to return to Kabul to
save Sohrab. As Amir searches for redemption, the question he struggles with is
precisely what concerned Baba: does he have the courage and strength to stand up
for what is right?

3. “Huddled together in the dining room and waiting for the sun to rise,
none of us had any notion that a way of life had ended.” (p. 36)

This quotation occurs at the beginning of Chapter 5, as Ali, Hassan,
and Amir hide inside from the gunfire they hear in the street that signals the
coup by Daoud Khan, which ended Afghanistan’s monarchy. Though the effects of
this coup were not immediately apparent, the coup ushered in an era of political
instability that would essentially ruin Afghanistan. The way of life Amir refers
to is the lifestyle that he, Baba, Ali, and Hassan knew before the coup, when
Kabul was still safe and stable. For Amir in particular this meant a relatively
idyllic life spent going to school, flying kites, and playing with Hassan, made
possible because Baba was wealthy. But in the years after the night Amir
describes when the coup occurred, violence and murder plagued the city, forcing
Baba and Amir to leave Afghanistan and with it everything they owned. As a
result, almost overnight everything Amir knew growing up in Kabul
changed.

4. “I actually aspired to cowardice, because the
alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing
was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had
to slay, to win Baba.”

When Amir says this, toward the end of Chapter 7, he has just watched
Assef rape Hassan,and rather than intervene, he ran away. Amir says he aspired
to cowardice because, in his estimation, what he did was worse than cowardice.
If fear of being hurt by Assef were the main reason he ran, Amir suggests that
at least would have been more justified. Instead, he allowed the rape to happen
because he wanted the blue kite, which he thought would prove to Baba that he
was a winner like him, earning him Baba’s love and approval. The price of the
kite, as Amir says, was Hassan, and this is why Amir calls Hassan the lamb he
had to slay. He draws a comparison between Hassan and the lamb sacrificed during
the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha to commemorate Abraham’s near sacrifice of his
son to God. In this context, Hassan was the sacrifice Amir had to make to get
the kite and ultimately to gain Baba’s affection.

5. “My body was broken—just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later—but
I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed.” (p.
289)

This quotation occurs during Amir’s meeting with Assef as he tries to find
Sohrab in Chapter 22. Assef beats Amir with brass knuckles, snapping
Amir’s ribs, splitting his lip and busting his jaw, and breaking the bone
beneath his left eye, but because Amir feels he deserves this, he feels relief.
He thinks he should have accepted the beating from Assef years ago, when he was
given the choice of saving Hassan—and likely getting physically hurt—or letting
Assef rape Hassan. Since that time, Amir has struggled with his guilt, which was
only made worse by the fact that he was never punished for his actions. He had
even gone looking for punishment in the past, as when he tried to get Hassan to
hit him with the pomegranates, because he felt then there would at least be some
justice for the way he treated Hassan. But Amir’s guilt lingered until his
confrontation with Assef, which despite the physical pain, made him feel
psychologically healed. Thus, while Assef beat him, he began to
laugh.